TALLAHASSEE, FL—When USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar was finally charged with child sexual abuse months after the FBI first learned he was molesting teenage girls, Director Christopher Wray swore they would never allow a notoriously bungled Nassar-esque situation to happen again.
Spoiler: they did.
"Where is the accountability? Will anyone get demoted, reprimanded, or fired? The trust and faith in the US government are at a historic low because most Americans believe nobody is held accountable for their activity," Chris Eddy, a former intelligence analyst and coordinator within the FBI, told The Floridian. "There is no greater importance than protecting the most vulnerable in our population and the FBI and US government need to do better."
According to an audit released Thursday by the Justice Department's inspector general, the FBI has continued to mishandle allegations of child sexual abuse in the years following the 2018 Nassar conviction. Due to their inaction, local law enforcement was only contacted in half of all cases, and just 17% were reported properly. Allegations were ignored for months—leading to one child continuing to be abused by a registered sex offender for over a year.
One 2-year-old was left in harm's way for over two years when the FBI failed to document any steps taken by law enforcement to safeguard the child, CNN reported. The excuse? The agent assigned to the case was overloaded with other investigations, the inspector general said.
Eddy, a Republican challenging Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz for her South Florida seat, stressed what he sees as a structurally deficient system that needs to be uprooted and reexamined.
"I think one of the worst things to come out of that inspection was the failure to notify local officials in nearly half of the cases reviewed. This, unfortunately, is another indication that the FBI and other federal agencies only react following an external review and are not proactive enough to improve their own processes ahead of time," he added.
State Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book, a recently termed-out Democrat and leading advocate for abused children, released a statement blasting the "unconscionable" FBI failures.
"Each delay, each missed report, represents a child who was left in harm’s way—suffering unimaginable pain and trauma that could have been prevented," said Book, who advocated for the toughest abuse reporting law in the nation following the 2012 Jerry Sandusky case. "The FBI disregarded reforms prompted by its own mishandling of the Larry Nassar case, which left USA Olympic gymnasts quite literally in the hands of a known predator...The FBI must be held accountable and take immediate, transparent actions to ensure these failures never happen again."
In the past few years, Florida has strengthened their penalties against child sexual abuse: in 2023, the Florida Legislature passed a first-in-the-nation law granting the death penalty for child rapists. In the 2024 Legislative session, a bill creating severe penalties for child grooming became law as did one creating a grant fund for online sting operations targeting pedophiles.
The Nassar investigation, meanwhile, was opened in 2018, two years after 150 women and girls testified against him. He will serve 40 to 175 years in Michigan State Prison for sexual abuse, plus a consecutive 60-year sentence for child pornography. In 2021, the inspector general closed the investigation, finding that officials in the FBI Indianapolis Field Office failed to respond to the Nassar allegations “with the utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required.”
Last year, an inmate stabbed Nassar multiple times after he allegedly made a comment asking to watch girls playing in the Wimbledon women's match. Nassar lived.
